The latest movie adaptation of Steven King’s terrifying book “IT” brought in a record $123 million in its opening weekend. But in real life, there’s nothing fun about being scared, so why do people flock to scary movies, and around Halloween, haunted houses and participate in other frightening activities? New research has the answer. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Laws criminalizing consensual gay sex have been scrapped in about 25 countries in the last 20 years, but more than 70 nations still have such prohibitions, a U.N. expert said Friday in a first-of-its-kind report at the General Assembly.           

 

And in many places around the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people live in “a crucible of egregious violations” of human rights, enduring violence and discrimination, said Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N.’s first independent expert investigating violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation. The world body’s Human Rights Council appointed him last year, in a move that met significant opposition amid deep international divisions on gay rights.

 

Addressing a U.N. General Assembly committee for the first time Friday, Muntarbhorn noted “a global trend toward decriminalization of consensual same-sex relations.” At least five countries — Belize, Lesotho, Mozambique, Palau and Seychelles — have scrubbed such laws in the last five years.

 

“The gaps are, however, ubiquitous,” Muntarbhorn added.

Besides the dozens of countries where it’s a crime — sometimes punishable by death — for people of the same gender to have sex, some countries also have criminal laws aimed at transgender people.

 

While some laws are rarely applied, they still fuel other forms of discrimination, Muntarbhorn said. He called for reforming all criminal laws against same-sex relations and for establishing more anti-discrimination laws.

Muntarbhorn’s job became a flashpoint last year, when African nations tried to stop his work. They questioned its legal basis and said the U.N. was delving into national matters and prioritizing LGBT issues over discrimination based on race or religion.

 

A proposal to suspend Muntarbhorn ultimately lost a General Assembly vote, 77-86, with 16 abstentions.

 

His work has continued to face headwinds. Few countries have responded when contacted about alleged rights violations, Muntarbhorn said, adding that all details of the communications were confidential.

 

“Precisely because this mandate was so heated, so caustic, from the beginning, my humble intention during this year was to calm the situation through quiet engagement,” said Muntarbhorn, a Thai law professor who has served in other U.N. posts. He’s resigning as of Tuesday, citing illness in his household.

His successor is to be named in December.

 
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The Trump administration Friday proposed new health insurance regulations that could affect basic benefits required by the Affordable Care Act, but not for a couple of years.

Loosening “Obamacare” benefit requirements was a major sticking point for congressional Republicans in thus-far fruitless efforts to repeal the law.

The complex new plan from the administration would give states a potential path to easing some requirements.

Starting in 2019, states could select from coverage levels in another state, which could be less generous. Ten broad categories of services required by the health law would still have to be covered, but the fine print could change.

Plan issued late Friday

Issued late in the day, the 365-page plan also proposes other changes to the inner workings of the health insurance markets created under the Obama-era law. The marketplaces offer subsidized private plans to people who don’t have access to job-based coverage. The changes proposed by the Trump administration cover areas from consumers’ eligibility for subsidies to how insurers are reimbursed.

It could take days for consumer groups, insurers, benefits experts and others to assess the potential impact of the proposal. Among the biggest uncertainties is whether the proposed changes would appeal to state officials, who generally try to protect standards established on their home turf.

The basic benefits that could be affected include:

Outpatient, inpatient and emergency care
Prescription drugs and labs
Preventive care
Pregnancy, maternity and newborn care
Mental health and substance abuse
Rehabilitation
Children’s services, including vision and dental

While those categories are established by law and can’t be changed in a regulation, the fine print can make a big difference. For example, insurers can cover certain drugs, but not others, for a given medical condition. Expensive treatments for complicated chronic illnesses can be subject to limits on the number of visits the plan will cover.

The Trump administration’s proposal also called for changes to small-business health insurance markets created by the ACA.
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A major health care system serving the upper Midwest said this week that the number of opioid pills it prescribes has fallen by almost a quarter as it works to respond to America’s opioid epidemic.

South Dakota-headquartered Sanford Health started analyzing its prescribing last year to direct its response to rising opioid and heroin overdose deaths, said Doug Griffin, who spearheaded the system’s data collection as vice president and medical officer for Sanford in Fargo, North Dakota.

Griffin said the health system learned that the numbers are “staggering”: The system reported prescribing 4.3 million opioid pills in the first quarter of 2016, a figure that doesn’t include cancer patients’ prescriptions. Sanford took steps as a result, including mandating opioid education for providers and using its electronic health record system to alert doctors about safe prescribing habits, Griffin said.

Sanford has since seen a significant reduction in both the number of pills prescribed and prescriptions written. Sanford providers wrote 18 percent fewer prescriptions for opioids in the third quarter of 2017 compared to the first quarter of 2016, amounting to 24 percent, or about 1.25 million, fewer pills prescribed, according to the health system.

The Sioux Falls, South Dakota, region saw a 19 percent reduction in pills prescribed, while the Fargo area experienced a 33 percent drop and the Bemidji, Minnesota, region saw a 37 percent decrease, according to Sanford.

​‘Knowledge has changed’

“The stance that we have taken is clearly opioid overdoses, both illicit and prescription overdoses, are a problem in this country, including in our footprint,” Griffin said. “Like many things in medicine, our knowledge has changed and our focus has shifted on this.”

Allison Suttle, chief medical officer at Sanford, said the system’s end goal is to ensure patients are safe and well-treated and that physicians are educated in how to treat patients’ pain while being “good stewards of the use of opioids.”

“Large health systems can serve as examples,” she said.

South Dakota Department of Health Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon said that South Dakota has a low opioid overdose death rate compared to other states, but noted that the state had 38 opioid overdose deaths last year. She said large health systems are on the front lines.

“I think they’re extremely committed to this, and I’m really confident that we’re going to see the changes that we need to see to stay ahead of this epidemic that we’re seeing in other states,” she said.

Avera Health, a Sioux Falls-based health system, sponsored a conference this month with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of South Dakota on the opioid epidemic. Deb Fischer-Clemens, Avera vice president of public policy, said the organization’s responsible prescribing program includes patient contracts, educating providers and patients on opioids and working with its electronic health record to create easy access to the state Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.

Fewer prescriptions, fewer pills

Jay Bhatt, senior vice president and chief medical office for the American Hospital Association, said in a statement that the nation’s hospitals and health systems are working to reduce the number of prescriptions written for opioids and the number of days that many patients take them.

Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare pledged in August to cut by 40 percent the average amount of opioids given per acute pain prescription by the end of next year.
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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday welcomed President Donald Trump’s declaration of the opioid epidemic as a public health emergency, saying he agreed with Trump that the war on addiction was “winnable.”

Trump on Thursday directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to declare a 90-day public health emergency, but he stopped short of declaring the epidemic a national emergency or asking Congress for additional funds.

Trump’s declaration nonetheless gives states more flexibility to use federal funds, although it will not provide funds specifically for the opioid crisis.

The White House said the administration had allocated more than $1 billion for the opioid epidemic, including $800 million for prevention, treatment, first responders and prescription drug monitoring programs.

‘Make a difference’

Sessions, speaking to law enforcement officials at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, called Trump’s announcement a “rare step” that “will make a difference by getting more help to those who need it.”

“In confronting the worst drug crisis in our history, we need to use every lawful tool we have,” Sessions said. “But if we do, there is hope. I agree with the president — I’m convinced that this is a winnable war.”

In August, the Department of Justice formed the Opioid Abuse and Detection Unit, a pilot program that places prosecutors in so-called opioid “hot spots” and uses data to investigate and prosecute opioid-related health care fraud.

Sessions said the program had begun to produce results.

On Thursday, he announced the first case brought by the program, a 14-count indictment of a Pennsylvania doctor for illegally prescribing and dispensing opioid pills and morphine — “often without an examination.”

On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced that the operator of a now-defunct pain management practice had pleaded guilty of opioid-related fraud in the amount of $750,000.

The doctor admitted prescribing a highly addictive version of the synthetic opioid drug fentanyl in exchange for $188,000 in kickbacks from drug company Insys Therapeutics Inc.

The company’s founder and majority owner, John Kapoor, was arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and fraud.

‘Overprescribing’ blamed

“Overprescribing is largely how we got into this crisis,” Sessions said. But he added that the proliferation of illegal fentanyl, which is 50 times as potent as heroin, had made the epidemic “much deadlier.”

Last year, more than 20,000 people died of overdoses involving fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, deaths from drug overdoses topped 64,000 for the first time, making overdoses the leading cause of death for Americans under age 50.

Fentanyl is available as a Schedule II prescription drug in the United States. But drug seizure data suggest that a large number of the increase in opioid-related deaths is related to illicit fentanyl, often sold on the internet.

In recent years, China has emerged as the No. 1 source of illicit fentanyl in the United States. Earlier this month, federal prosecutors charged two Chinese nationals with illegally distributing large quantities of fentanyl in the United States.

In July, authorities shut down the largest illegal drug marketplace operating on the so-called dark web. The site, AlphaBay, had more than 200,000 drug listings, including fentanyl.

Law enforcement officials vowed to continue to go after illegal fentanyl suppliers.

“As a first step in response to the president’s announcement, the Cyber Crimes Center … will serve as ground zero in our efforts to attack the fentanyl issue where it originates — the dark web,” said Derek Benner, acting executive associate director of Homeland Security Investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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In 2015, 92 million Americans used prescription opioids to alleviate or manage pain, with 11.5 million reporting they misused them. Now more than ever, patients are seeking alternative treatments to avoid using potentially addictive pain pills. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff introduces us to a Washington doctor who is helping people manage their pain and combat their addictions.
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Paul Coles’ journey to becoming one of the 2.5 million Americans addicted to prescription opioids began with painkillers prescribed for injuries suffered during an IED attack in Iraq. The physical scars healed, but emotionally Coles suffered. He had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and couldn’t stop using drugs. 

“It got to the point I would take three times the lethal dose of heroin and cocaine, load it into a syringe and shoot it up, trying to shut my body down,” Coles said. “I would sit there and say, ‘God if you are out there, just kill me.’”

Time after time, he cheated death. But he couldn’t escape the law. Coles found himself handcuffed, arrested and jailed on charges of felony drug possession. Yet what seemed to be a new low would turn into a lifeline.

From the moment Judge Jeri Beth Cohen looked at Coles, she knew he needed help. 

“My feeling is that opioid addiction is a terminal illness: You’re either going to end up in prison or you’re going to end up dead,” Cohen said.

“I’m seeing more and more cases,” she said. “These are young men and women between the age of, I guess, 21-30. It’s a largely Caucasian population,” she added.

​One judge, two courts, one team

Coles’ case is one of hundreds Cohen has seen during the unfolding prescription opioid and heroin epidemic in South Florida. Inside her courtroom, with graphic photos of what drugs can do to the body, she surrounds herself with professional caseworkers on the frontlines of how America’s criminal justice system handles the boom in opioid abuse.

Miami-Dade County launched the nation’s first drug court in 1989. Today there are 3,000 U.S. drug courts serving 136,000 people. But a report by Physicians for Human Rights claims few communities have adequate treatment facilities and the criminal justice objectives of drug courts often overrule the medical need of the patient.

Cohen’s drug court gives people the chance to beat their addictions, stay out of prison while eventually getting their felony drug charge expunged from the record if they complete the year-long program. 

Like Paul Coles 75 percent of Drug Court graduates remain arrest-free at least two years after leaving the program. 

Miami-Dade County launched its first drug court when the community was facing a previous drug crisis. The approach then did not address people’s addictions, rather it was focused on jailing them for criminal conduct.

“There was a crack cocaine epidemic just like we’re looking at this opioid and heroin epidemic right now. People coming into criminal court in large numbers were taking a plea or going to jail, getting out and getting rearrested,” Cohen said.

Today there’s a stream of people in drug court struggling with addiction to a multitude of prescription pain pills and heroin. Cohen, regarded as one of the top drug court judges in the country, uses a holistic approach.

“What I find is if we can get them stabilized on a drug like Methadone or a Suboxone, which blocks a high, then they’re able to start engaging and they’re much more able to focus on getting well.” she said. The goal of the drug court is to get people treatment, steering them away from prison time and hopefully reducing recidivism rates.

“You have to take many variables into account: trauma, untreated mental illness, the chronicity or severity of the drug usage and also what’s going on in the family. If you’re not developing a treatment plan with your treatment team based on an individual’s particular risk and needs, you aren’t going to be successful with that individual,” Cohen said.

The judge bemoans the system’s lack of compassion.

“People are treated really, really poorly,” she said. “In the jails, in the courts, even in treatment they’re treated poorly. If you have money, it’s easier to access care [but] it’s still hard.”

​Zero tolerance

For all her understanding, Cohen shows little tolerance for those not following the rules. She sentences some to community service hours while others go back to jail.

There are frequent drug screenings to make sure people stick with their sobriety. Those who don’t meet the court’s year-long requirements may be returned to a traditional criminal court to face felony drug charges.

“I don’t think that sick people should be in jail. I do the best that I can to help people get well within our system, to divert them out of jail, but yet hold them accountable,” Cohen said “I feel like I do my job and I feel like I do it well.” 

“If you don’t go into the program, that’s fine with me,” Cohen tells a young, opioid-addicted mother, handcuffed and dressed in orange prison suit. “I am not going to keep you here and I am going to have the state dependency court file a termination of parental rights. I will order them to do it,” Cohen stressed.

Family reunions

“The children in my court have been removed from their parents because they have severe and chronic drug addiction and have failed to get into treatment,” the judge said. Her formula is to get parents who are struggling with opioid addiction intensive drug treatment so they can regain custody of their children.

She said 60 percent of the parents who go through the program get their children back.

“It’s getting into true recovery, improving your relationships with your family, your spouse, your children and starting that long life-long journey to recovery,” Cohen said.
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American drug courts are taking a public health approach to help those addicted to prescription opioids and heroin. The goal is long-term recovery and allowing people to have their felony drug charges erased from their records if they complete the program. VOA’s Chris Simkins reports from Miami on how one judge is helping those struggling with opioid abuse.
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More than 10,000 mainly Syrian refugees who escaped fighting in their country are living on five Greek islands. About 2,500 of them are crowded into camps on the island of Samos, even though there is only room for about 800. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports aid groups say there is a growing mental health crisis among those refugees.
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U.S. public health advocates welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to declare the U.S. opioid epidemic a national public health emergency, but say the crisis needs additional funds to be addressed. The 90-day order enables states to use federal emergency funds to fight the crisis, but, although it can be extended, it does not provide a long-term budget. Also, as VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, there are fears that emergency resources may be depleted by the cost of natural and other disasters.
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What looks like clean drinking water can contain harmful chemicals, like lead, and there is no easy, reliable way to detect it. So, a young scientist invented one, in the process, winning the 2017 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Faith Lapidus reports.
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The extent to which organ transplants can allow recipients to not only survive but thrive was on display this week at a medical conference in the U.S. A former opera singer who received a double lung transplant five years ago returned to the stage, to sing with her donor’s daughter. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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A 10-story-tall tree moved two city blocks on giant rollers last summer has new growth and appears happy in its new location, a tree expert said Wednesday.

Tree mover David Cox of Environmental Design examined the 800,000-pound (363,000-kilogram) sequoia in Boise, Idaho, and pronounced the tree fit.

“She looks pretty good,” he said. “But it’s still too early to tell. You still need about two or three growing seasons to really say that she’s recovered. We’re not in any danger zone. We feel like the tree is still happy.”

Moving the tallest tree ever attempted by the company required cutting back the root system that’s now being monitored for moisture content with underground sensors at the tree’s new location on city property.

Three of the four sensors Cox examined indicated the root system was not getting enough moisture, so he ordered a water truck. One was already scheduled to visit once a week this winter, but hadn’t started.

An irrigation system that includes misting hoses at the top of the tree was recently turned off by city workers in preparation for winter, and the area dried out quicker than expected, Cox said.

Cox also said he’s a bit concerned about some broken bark and smoothed-over bark at the base that might have been caused by animals or vandals or somebody climbing. He said the bark is about 9 inches (23 centimeters) thick so the living part of the tree under the bark isn’t being damaged.

Naturalist John Muir, who played a key role in establishing California’s Sequoia National Park, sent the tree as a seedling to Boise more than a century ago. It was planted in the yard of a doctor’s home.

St. Luke’s Health System in June paid $300,000 to move Idaho’s largest sequoia — which are not native to the state — to make way for a hospital expansion. Cutting down the most notable tree in the city’s urban forest could have risked a public relations backlash, and the hospital has said it never considered that option.

The tree suffered at its old location because it was shaded by a tall building. Cox also said the building created a kind of wind tunnel that caused part of the tree to dry out and turn brown. But those needles have fallen off at the new location and have been replaced with green, healthy needles.

The tree’s future health is uncertain in its new spot next to one of the city’s busiest traffic routes and only about eight blocks from the city’s core downtown area.

“We’re in a new environment here, a little more open,” Cox said. “We don’t know if we’re going to be better off or worse off. Se we’re going to prepare for drying winds.”

Winter treatments

He prescribed treatments in November, December and January to spray the tree with a type of substance to prevent it from drying out in cold winter winds, likening the process to a person applying hand lotion to prevent skin from drying out.

“It goes on kind of oily and dries waxy,” he said.

The treatments will cost about $1,500 each. St. Luke’s spokeswoman Anita Kisee said she did not know if the company will pay, and Boise’s Parks and Recreation department did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

Cox under the contract with the hospital is serving only as a consultant, but said the company could chip in to partially fund expenses.

Brian Jorgenson, a city forester, checks on the tree and neighbors also appear to be watchful. He said he was challenged once by someone wanting to know if he was supposed to be poking around under the tree.

“I think the tree looks better in its current location,” he said. “It’s a lot more visible than it used to be, and we’re proud to have it on park property now.”

Cox said he plans to make site visits in January and again in March or April to consider treatments for the growing season for the sequoia, which are known to live for several thousand years in the right conditions.
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Spurred by the chemical industry, President Donald Trump’s administration is retreating from a congressionally mandated review of some of the most dangerous chemicals in public use: millions of tons of asbestos, flame retardants and other toxins in homes, offices and industrial plants across the United States.

 

Instead of following president Barack Obama’s proposal to look at chemicals already in widespread use that result in some of the most common exposures, the new administration wants to limit the review to products still being manufactured and entering the marketplace.

 

For asbestos, that means gauging the risks from just a few hundred tons of the material imported annually – while excluding almost all of the estimated 8.9 million tons (8.1 million metric tons) of asbestos-containing products that the U.S. Geological Survey said entered the marketplace between 1970 and 2016.

 

The review was intended to be the first step toward enacting new regulations to protect the public. But critics – including health workers, consumer advocates, members of Congress and environmental groups – contend ignoring products already in use undermines that goal.

 

The administration’s stance is the latest example of Trump siding with industry. In this case, firefighters and construction workers say the move jeopardizes their health.

 

Both groups risk harm from asbestos because of its historical popularity in construction materials ranging from roofing and flooring tiles to insulation used in tens of millions of homes. Most of the insulation came from a mine in a Montana town that’s been declared a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site and where hundreds of people have died from asbestos exposure.

 

“Hundreds of thousands of firefighters are going to be affected by this. It is by far the biggest hazard we have out there,” said Patrick Morrison, assistant general president for health and safety at the International Association of Fire Fighters. “My God, these are not just firefighters at risk. There are people that live in these structures and don’t know the danger of asbestos.”

The EPA told The Associated Press on Wednesday that there were measures to protect the public other than the law Congress passed last year, which mandated the review of asbestos and nine other chemicals to find better ways to manage their dangers. For example, workers handling asbestos and emergency responders can use respirators to limit exposure, the agency said in a statement.

 

Asbestos fibers can become deadly when disturbed in a fire or during remodeling, lodging in the lungs and causing problems including mesothelioma, a form of cancer. The material’s dangers have long been recognized. But a 1989 attempt to ban most asbestos products was overturned by a federal court, and it remains in widespread use.

 

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health analyzed cancer-related deaths among 30,000 firefighters from Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. The 2015 study concluded firefighters contract mesothelioma at twice the rate of other U.S. residents.

 

Firefighters also face exposure to flame retardants included in the EPA’s review that are used in furniture and other products.

 

“I believe the chemical industry is killing firefighters,” said Tony Stefani, a former San Francisco fireman who retired in 2003 after 28 years when diagnosed with cancer he believes resulted from exposure to chemicals in the review.

 

Stefani said he was one of five in his station to contract cancer in a short period. Three later died, while Stefani had a kidney removed and endured a year of treatment before being declared cancer-free.

 

“When I entered the department in the early 70s, our biggest fear was dying in the line of duty or succumbing to a heart attack,” he said. “Those were the biggest killers, not cancer. But we work in a hazardous-materials situation every time we have a fire now.”

Mesothelioma caused or contributed to more than 45,000 deaths nationwide between 1999 and 2015, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study in March. The number of people dying annually from the disease increased about 5 percent during that time.

 

In one of its last acts under Obama, the EPA said in January it would judge the chemicals “in a comprehensive way” based on their “known, intended and reasonably foreseen uses.”

 

Under Trump, the agency has aligned with the chemical industry, which sought to narrow the review’s scope. The EPA now says it will focus only on toxins still being manufactured and entering commerce. It won’t consider whether new handling and disposal rules are needed for “legacy,” or previously existing, materials.

 

“EPA considers that such purposes generally fall outside of the circumstances Congress intended EPA to consider,” said EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones, adding the agency lacks authority to regulate noncommercial uses of the chemicals.

 

One of the law’s co-authors, New Mexico Democratic Sen. Tom Udall, disputes that Congress wanted to limit the review.

 

“It doesn’t matter whether the dangerous substance is no longer being manufactured; if people are still being exposed, then there is still a risk,” Udall told AP. “Ignoring these circumstances would openly violate the letter and the underlying purpose of the law.”

 

Democrats and public health advocates have criticized EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for installing people with longstanding ties to the chemical industry into senior positions at the agency. On Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, on a party-line vote, advanced the nomination of Michael Dourson, a toxicologist whose work has been paid for by the industry, to oversee the EPA’s chemical safety program.

 

Two prior appointments worked for the American Chemistry Council, the industry’s lobbying arm: Nancy Beck, deputy assistant administrator for chemical safety, and Liz Bowman, the associate administrator for public affairs.

 

The council pushed back against the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law, urging the EPA’s new leadership to narrow its review. The Trump administration did that in June.

 

“Did we get everything we wanted? No. But we certainly agree the [Trump] administration put forth a reasonable final rule,” said council vice president Michael Walls. Broadening the review, he added, would send the EPA “down a rabbit hole chasing after illusory risks.”

 

The politically influential National Association of Homebuilders, which represents the residential construction industry, fears broadly interpreting the new law would lead to burdensome regulations that are unnecessary because it says asbestos disposal rules already are adequate.

 

Many of those regulations are based on a 1994 Occupational Safety and Health Administration finding that materials had to contain at least 1 percent asbestos to qualify for regulation. But public health experts say the 1 percent threshold is arbitrary.

 

“It’s bad medicine, and it’s harmful,” said Michael Harbut, an internal medicine professor at Detroit’s Wayne State University and medical adviser to an insulation workers’ union.

 

“There’s still a lot of asbestos out there,” said Harbut, who helped establish criteria used by physicians to diagnose and treat asbestos-related diseases. “It’s still legal, it’s still deadly, and it’s going to be a problem for decades to come.”
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The United States is suffering through an unprecedented, deadly wave of opioid and prescription drug overdoses. The drug crisis comes nearly 50 years after the government declared a “War on Drugs.” VOA’s Chris Simkins looks back at the War on Drugs and how experts say mistakes of the past cannot be repeated in this new battle against opioid drug abuse.
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Doctors in the U.S. are increasingly employing a new approach when treating tumors, thanks to the new technology of genomic sequencing. It allows them to look at each patient and his or her cancer as an individual, and develop a customized therapy. The new approach is showing some promising results. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Arctic sea ice may be thinning faster than predicted because salty snow on the surface of the ice skews the accuracy of satellite measurements, a new

study from the University of Calgary said on Tuesday.

The report from the Canadian university’s Cryosphere Climate Research Group published in the academic journal Geophysical Research Letters found satellite estimates for the thickness of seasonal sea ice have been overestimated by up to 25 percent.

That means the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free much sooner than some scientific predictions, which forecast sea ice will first disappear completely during summer months between 2040 and 2050, according to lead author Vishnu Nandan.

Ice-free summers in the Arctic Ocean would impact global weather patterns by increasing the magnitude and frequency of major storms, and alter the Arctic marine ecosystem, making it harder for animals like polar bears to hunt.

There are a wide range of projections as to when Arctic sea ice will start disappearing in summertime as a result of warming global temperatures, and the University of Calgary study calls into question satellite measurements provided so far.

“The problem is, microwave measurements from satellites don’t penetrate the salty snow very well, so the satellite is not measuring the proper sea ice freeboard and the satellite readings overestimate the thickness of the ice,” Nandan said.

The sea ice freeboard refers to ice that can be seen above sea level and co-researcher John Yackel said, “Our results suggest that snow salinity should be considered in all future estimates on the Arctic seasonal ice freeboard made from satellites.”

Reporting by Nia Williams; editing by Diane Craft.
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Hope is the thing with feathers, poet Emily Dickinson wrote. For Richard Thorns, the feathers are pink.

 

Thorns’ hope? To prove that a colorful duck is not extinct. This week, he launches a seventh expedition into the inaccessible wilds of Myanmar to search for the pink-headed duck that hasn’t been seen alive since 1949, and that was in India. No one has seen the bird alive in Myanmar in more than a century.

 

Thorns, a British writer who quit his shop clerk job 20 years ago after reading about the pink-headed duck in the book “Vanishing Birds,” has spent $20,000 of his own money on previous fruitless trips. His birder brother called him mad.

 

“I could have had a lot of nice things,”  the 53-year-old said. “I don’t want nice things. I want to see a pink-headed duck.”

 

This time, he is backed by the Global Wildlife Conservation group, which launched a hunt for “lost species” — 25 quirky and elusive plants and animals beginning with the duck. A sports optic company and cheesemaking company are also helping pay.

 

Thorns and three others plan to head to the wetlands north of the vast Indawgyi Lake during the rainy season where they believe they have a better chance of spotting the duck. And Thorn thinks he has a secret weapon: elephants.

 

He used canoes in the past and thinks he probably spooked the shy birds. Now he plans to bring elephants stomping through the wetlands.

 

“Clearly a bird isn’t going to hunker down if there are 2-ton elephants,” said Thorn.

 

As crazy as it may seem, Thorns may be onto something, said ornithologist Kevin McGowan at Cornell University who isn’t part of the expedition.

 

“Fairly regularly birds get rediscovered,” says McGowan, who has gone on unsuccessful expeditions for the ivory-billed woodpecker. “We don’t see all the world that is in front of our eyes.”

 

A Cornell student found Bermuda petrels, rare seabirds thought to be extinct for 300 years. Other rediscovered animals include a crow species in Asia and a nocturnal parrot in Australia. These birds survive by not being noticed “so what’s your certainty that it’s gone?” said McGowan.

 

One thing that keeps Thorns going is the thought that someone else might find the pink-headed duck first.

 

Every time he goes out, the bird “breaks my heart,” he said. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t seen that picture.”
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Nearly 30 years ago, 1,000 children a day were paralyzed by the polio virus. So far this year, 11 children have been diagnosed with polio, thanks to a global effort to wipe out the polio virus. The effort has produced amazing results, but as VOA’s Carol Pearson reports, those behind it say it’s not time yet to celebrate.
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When Britain’s Cambridge University put physicist Stephen Hawking’s 1966 thesis on line for the first time Monday, the university’s website collapsed.

Professor Hawking’s “Properties of Expanding Universes” has been the most requested item in the university’s library.

To meet the demand, and with Hawking’s encouragement, Cambridge made it available on line.

About 60,000 people sought to access it, causing the system to periodically shut down throughout the day Monday.

Hawking is the world’s best-known physicist and expert on the cosmos.

His landmark 1988 work “A Brief History of Time” has sold more than 10 million copies.

With his thesis now available for anyone to read, Hawking said he hopes to “inspire people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet, to wonder about our place in the universe and to try and make sense of the cosmos.”
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A chocolate bar may make you feel better when you’re down, but a cup of yogurt or a handful of cashews might be a better choice.

“I think about our body in some ways like a car engine,” says therapist Leslie Korn. “We need to give it the right fuel. And each of us have a need for a particular combination of proteins, and carbohydrates and fats.”

 

Korn has been treating people for trauma and depression for more than 40 years. She noticed that when her patients changed their diet and began eating foods like dark chocolate, sweet potatoes, eggs and cherries, they had much more success in lifting their depression and decreasing their pain.

 

She turned her observations into a book: The Good Mood Kitchen. It contains recipes and nutrition tips that can help put you in a good mood.

 

Fat for the brain

Fats, she explains, are not the nemesis many diets have made them out to be. We need fats in our diet because our brain is made up of fat. “It’s made up of chemicals that talk to each other and that are lubricated by the fat in order to communicate across the synapses, and contribute to our ability to focus, to apply attention and to lift our mood. Indeed, there is some very good research going on in the military looking at the role of Omega 3 fatty acids for not only treatment of depression and anxiety, but also for suicide prevention.”

 

Taking care of the digestive system, which breaks down the fat, is essential for the brain to benefit, and Korn has a suggestion for that, too.

 

“For example, if your liver and if your gallbladder is not working, you can’t break down fats that are absorbed into the blood stream and then support brain function. What we know is that the greens, in particular bitter greens, help us digest fats and send those fats to the brain where we need it.”

 

The Brainbow diet

Those greens are part of what Korn calls the “Brainbow” diet. She says the colors in the food represent different nutrients. “Your orange, and kind of yellow foods provide lots of vitamin A, lots of vital nutrients. The variety of greens are very good for our digestion. Your purple food and your red food are very anti-inflammatory. These are beets and our eggplants and our berries.”

The “Brainbow” Food list also includes:

Red foods: red cabbage, radishes, watermelons

Orange foods: carrots, sweet potatoes, oranges, pumpkins

Yellow foods: lemons, bananas

Green foods: kale

White foods: garlic, onion, nuts

Foods for every symptom

Therapist Korn says probiotics are important in treating depression and lifting our mood. She calls them “psychobiotics.” Those can be found in yogurt and fermented food.

For people who suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), she recommends foods rich in Omega 3 fatty oils like salmon, flaxseed oil and nuts.

Cocoa and chocolate are known to be good for improving the brain’s cognitive function.

Caffeine helps the brain focus. It stimulates the brain to release dopamine, a chemical messenger that helps in the transmission of signals in the brain and other vital areas.

Cherries and chamomile help the brain release melatonin and anti-anxiety chemicals for a good night’s sleep.

 

Around the world with good mood food

Every country, Korn says, has certain foods that enhance mental well-being. In her book, she offers recipes for them — fresh raw sauerkraut from Eastern Europe, kimchi from Korea and miso soup from Japan. Plantain is a popular food in India, Mexico and countries in Africa and the Caribbean. The Good Mood Kitchen includes a recipe for Plantain Soup.

 

“Plantains are large bananas, very starchy and a little bit sweet. And I add some lemon, and butter and chopped onion, and garlic. And you make it with either a vegetable broth or a chicken broth. Then you add coconut milk, and blend. And then I top it with cilantro, Chinese parsley and garlic, grated orange peel and lime juice.”

 

Sweet potatoes are familiar to people around the world. In her book, Korn offers a simple recipe for preparing them. “Add butter, sea salt and bake. This is good for stress.”

Relax and savor

Korn says because mood follows food, we have to improve our digestion in order to improve our mental health. And since stress and hyperactivity slow down the enzymes our body releases to digest food, once you have prepared a dish designed to improve your emotional balance, it’s important to slow down, take some deep breaths, relax and enjoy eating the meal.  

Good Mood Recipes

Baked Wild Salmon

Sprinkle sea salt and a little olive oil on the salmon and place it on a cookie sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees, then place it under the broiler for at least 5 minutes.

Keep an eye on the salmon. It should be pink on the inside.

Garlic Yogurt Salad Dressing

½ -3/4 cup plain cow or goat milk yogurt

1 small garlic clove (minced)

¼ tsp. dried basil

½ tbsp. apple cider vinegar

1/16 tsp. stevia powder

1 tsp. chopped fresh parsley

4 tbsp. organic mayonnaise

Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl and serve.
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It was a source of national pride — technology and discipline besting a crippling lack of water.

But four years of drought have overtaxed Israel’s unmatched array of desalination and wastewater treatment plants, choking its most fertile regions and catching the government off-guard.

“No one imagined we would face a sequence of arid years like this, because it never happened before,” said Uri Schor, spokesman for Israel’s Water Authority.

The Sea of Galilee, technically a lake near the border with Syria, is forecast to hit its lowest level ever before winter rains come, despite the fact that pumping there was massively reduced. Underground aquifers, the other main freshwater source, are nearing levels that will turn them salty.

How to cope with the crisis is becoming an increasingly touchy subject in Israel. Proposed cuts to water use for the coming year, more than 50 percent in some areas, prompted vehement opposition from farmers, who already face tough restrictions and would have been the hardest hit. The government quickly backtracked.

In the Middle East, one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, water is also the subject of wider tensions.

Intense pressure on already scarce water resources could lead to an increase in migration and the risk of conflict, the World Bank has warned.

Syria and Jordan depend on some of the same water sources as Israel, which as added to tensions in the past. Palestinians have long complained of inadequate access to water, which is mostly under Israeli control in the occupied West Bank. Israel has said it has supplied more water than required under interim peace deals.

Under discussion for a possible long-term solution to Israel’s water problem is the construction of an additional desalination plant, an industry official said. A similar facility in Israel has cost more $400 million.

Several new reservoirs to catch rain and flood waters could also relieve some pressure as a quick, $60 million fix, the official said, asking to remain anonymous due to the political sensitivity of the subject.

Just a few years ago Israel, a country two-thirds arid, declared an end to the water shortages that hounded it for decades. A longstanding nationwide awareness campaign ceased and Israelis could take long showers and water their gardens.

There was even talk of exporting surplus water to its neighbors. This came as a result of a massive investment drive which saw Israel put 15 billion shekels ($4.3 billion) in its national water grid and sewage treatment centers. The commercial sector invested another 7 billion shekels into the construction of five desalination plants.

Supply issues are being hardest felt among farmers in the northern tip of Israel, the region where Dubi Amitay, a fourth-generation farmer and president of the Israel Farmers Federation, lives.

Amitay said the shortage had made him decide to dry out 3,700 acres of land, which will take a toll on future harvests.

His home region of eastern Galilee, a lush swath of land between the coast and the Golan Heights, could lose up to 500 million shekels this season, he said.

The lack of reliable waters supply leaves farmers with deep uncertainty.

“Will we have water or not?,” he said.
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A collection of radio telescopes that spans thousands of miles and is remotely operated from central New Mexico has measured a span of 66,000 light-years (one light-year is equal to 6 trillion miles) from Earth across the Milky Way’s center to a star-forming area near the edge of the other side of the galaxy.

Astronomers say they hope to measure additional points around the galaxy to produce a map – the first of its kind – over the next decade.

Alberto Sanna of Germany’s Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy said in a news release that using the Very Long Baseline Array, which is remotely operated near Socorro, allows astronomers to “accurately map the whole extent of our galaxy,” the Albuquerque Journal reported.

Mark Reid, a senior radio astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who worked on the project, said they hope to create the map by measuring additional points around the galaxy. So far, they have measured around 200.

Reid said 100 or so observations must be done from the Earth’s southern hemisphere, so he will be traveling to Australia in the future to use telescopes there.

Although the data for the 66,000 light-year measurement was collected in 2014 and 2015, the team has spent the time since then analyzing it, Reid said. “It’s not like you get a Hubble (Space Telescope) space image,” he said.

While there are artistic renderings of what the Milky Way probably looks like, this effort will yield a highly accurate image, Reid said.
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The United States is in the middle of an unprecedented opioid overdose epidemic. The abuse of prescription opioids along with the illicit use of heroin killed nearly 60-thousand people last year. Every day 91 Americans die from prescription opioid related overdoses. VOA’s Chris Simkins has more on the story.
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